Rove: Obama's Open-Mic Russia Comment Could Sink Re-election

President Barack Obama’s wait-until-after-the-election comment to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that an open microphone caught could pose a serious problem for the president’s re-election bid, Karl Rove writes in an Op-Ed on the Fox News website.

Obama didn't realize the mic would pick up his comments when he told Medvedev that issues such as missile defense would be best handled after the election when he would “have more flexibility.”

“By telling Mr. Medvedev and his patron, the once-and-future Russian President Vladimir Putin, that he will have ‘flexibility’ after the American election on Russian demands opposing a U.S. missile defense for Europe, Mr. Obama is in effect saying he is ready to do something the Russians will like but that the American people won’t,” the former top aide to President George W. Bush wrote.

“Mr. Obama has shown Russian leaders, and now the entire world, weakness.”

Rove added that Obama’s remarks in Seoul, South Korea, could confirm to voters that he’s “not shooting straight with the American people.”

“Is Mr. Obama also concealing unpopular domestic policies he’ll spring on the country in a second term? What the president calls ‘flexibility’ with Russian autocrats, American voters will likely view as a lack of candor with them,” Rove wrote on the Fox News website. “If that’s the case, it could seriously undermine the president’s chances for re-election.

“This won’t all happen by itself. To make the most of Mr. Obama’s statement, Republicans will need to raise it again and again in speeches, ads, videos and debates.”